Our commission included General Lee Butler former Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic Air and Strategic Commands from Sweden Ambassador Rolf Ekeus who heads

Our commission included General Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic Air and Strategic Commands; from Sweden, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, who heads the UN mission investigating Iraq's mass-destruction weapon programme; from France, Michel Rocard, MEP, former Prime Minister, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the well known environmentalist; from Russia, Professor Roald Sagdeev, former science adviser to President Gorbachev, now head of the East-West Space Center in the US; from China, Ambassador Qian Jiadong, former Ambassador to the UN Disarmament Conference; and from this country, Professor Joseph Rotblat, FRS, Nobel Peace Prizewinner and President of the Pugwash Conferences.We have listed many reasons for supporting the goal of total elimination of nuclear arms First, they are such horrible weapons. Discussion convinced me that the target was indeed feasible, and that an opportunity existed, in the absence of any serious tension between the major powers. It became clear that if the US and Russia perceived abandonment of nuclear weapons to be in their interests, it would become possible and achievable within a period significantly shorter than most people envisaged. Our report, presented last month, was unanimously agreed, without any qualification Yet no difficult issue was fudged. When we first met in Canberra, I was already inclined to accept total elimination as the goal. We should have primaries and a form of proportional representation that allows selection from a list. The MPs we have now are neither representative nor a brightest and best elite..

Last year, I was rung up by Gareth Evans, then the Australian Foreign minister, who told me that, in the backwash from protests about French nuclear tests in the Pacific, the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had decided to establish an international commission to report on the feasibility of totally eliminating nuclear weapons He wanted me to serve on it. Once he told me that respected figures such as Robert McNamara, the former US Defence Secretary, had already accepted, I agreed. That near-universal voting pattern exposes the myth of the "local" MP. If Alan Howarth does not succeed in winning some constituency, it is to be hoped he will lose to a succession of much better people.But if the last 23 or so winnable seats for Labour reject Howarth for lesser candidates, then it really is time to find a better way. It produces a House of Commons three-quarters stuffed with the stupid, the venal, the idle and the mediocre - lacklustre local chaps (mostly men) with no qualification for governing the country. Some democracy.Our method of selecting MPs locally often favours a local grandee or councillor over superior merit, party or national interest. Liberal parties have favourite sons like the bottom of a boat has barnacles.

Will anyone stand aside for her for the good of the party? We shall see.Ms Nicholson says gamely that of course she expects no help - "I joined a democratic party, so the membership decides." A tad fairer than the Tories maybe, but hardly what you would call "democracy". In all the parties a handful of activists who pay their subscription get to choose the candidate on behalf of the rest of us. More important, if I were a waverer from another party, I would be watching her progress with keen interest. But she has not applied for any seat - for family reasons, she says. (Others hint she knows her new party quite well enough to have decided from the start that it might be a waste of time and dignity.)She now hopes for a European seat, fully aware that since her party only has two MEPs, finding a winnable one will be exceedingly difficult. "We get calls from local party people warning us if ever he sends in his CV," says Tribune's editor, Mark Seddon, malevolently.

"There's a suspicion that some old-timer MP will retire just before the election, deliberately making no time for a selection so the leadership can impose Howarth. He came from the Thatcherite right and if he's ratted once, he could rat again. The rank and file who have done 15 or 20 years of legwork don't want to create some centre party where it doesn't matter where you come from." (Mr Seddon is himself on the trail for a safe Labour seat.)What of Emma Nicholson? Of course she says she is having a wonderful time among wonderful people. (Odd but true.) He is sufficiently respected for even the Tory attacks on him to have been relatively muted.